Covered in Syrup

Neyla has been wanting to get a Jelly Ring, which drops off a large slime called Sewer Syrup. It lives in the Bostaunieux Oubliette. The stats on the ring -- -5% physical damage taken, but +5% magical damage taken -- are nifty. Hell, I wouldn't mind having one for Campaigns.

Some

The mousse take a long time to kill.

psycho had included a note on Sewer Syrup's wiki page that it was soloable by "any melee with Dancer sub." It seemed like a pretty strong endorsement for the idea that we should get our butts in there so I could beat it to death... even though I know how much jellies resist blunt damage. Hope springs eternal!

We were killing mousse for at least 90 minutes when the thing popped. Another duo had entered the zone a few minutes before and happened to arrive at that exact moment, which really makes you wonder about hacking. I still managed to use Animated Flourish to provoke it out from under their noses. Neyla used Gravity and we started moving it to the Ronfaure zone.

Neyla managed to get aggro from all the undead and died before getting there, so I was on my own. Again, the person who posted that /DNC melee gibberish was on high-grade heroin, because that thing handed me my ass. It was damaging me a lot faster than I could cure myself, and I was running out of TP.

I had to zone out and leave it to the other two. Neyla's going to come back some other time and camp it with Shmedly on Black Mage. He'll probably be able to kill it in three or four nukes.

I think it would be fun to go back and fight it with Formless Strikes and Hundred Fists. If I ever unlock that ability, I may seek a rematch.

Skillups

I've been toying with trying to cap my guard skill, despite the howls of laughter that generally brings whenever the topic comes up on Monk message boards. It seems like it would be very easy to do as MNK/DNC.

I

I beat a Steelshell to death behind the waterfall.

wanted to toy around with the idea, so I traveled out to the Boyahda Tree and started fighting the Robber Crabs. Neyla tagged along as Paladin so he could skill up his Divine Magic by spamming Flash. I think we must've fought a dozen or so crabs before I got a measly .2 skillup.

For the proverbial shits and giggles, we went upstairs so I could try my hand against one of the black mandies. I got a few guard skillups, but more surprising were the evasion skillups; I'd assumed that was already capped. It was a rough fight, but we didn't stay long because there was a Beastmaster fighting the goobues and I'd essentially stolen one of his pets. I went behind the waterfall and punch a Steelshell to death before we took off.

We did a few Campaigns instead. We'll ding 36 on Dancer tomorrow.

Photo Finished

I

Neyla takes a yagudo-induced dirt nap.

was running errands for a big chunk of the afternoon, so there wasn't as much gaming today. I logged on and followed Neyla from one Campaign battlefield to another in search of a really good signature image he can use at QCDN. He wants a Paladin-themed one, so we figured it would be best to get a pic of him tanking one of the Campaign NMs.

We had some decent luck with the yagudos in Meriphataud Mountains. They have very distinctive helmets, to be sure. I ran in close and tried to get a usable pic before we died from the AoE spam. I also totally forgot to get a second set of Allied Tags during back-to-back fights, which I dismissed as trying to avoid Campaign aggro.

I managed to finish off a third merit and used them to raise my Kick Attack Frequency another level.

Double Dipping

Yesterday

I kept the goblin busy while Neyla fought the dhalmel.

and today ran the same pattern. Neyla and I gathered in Bibiki Bay to fight bunnies until our ring charges wore off and then did a bunch of Campaign battles. The end is nearly in sight, because we dinged 35 today.

We varied it up a bit, too. After several days of killing the same three bunnies over and over, we branched out and added some birds and dhalmels and a goblin BST. The latter made it entertaining because he summoned a bunny which would link with one of the nearby Island Rarabs.

Hitting 35 gave us Drain Samba II and Healing Waltz. I couldn't wait to try them out in Campaign, and it was a definite improvement. I finished off a second merit point, earned a Mythril Star in my evaluation, and probably earned enough Allied Notes to pass the next evaluation. One of the North Gustaberg fights got particularly hairy when the demon commander turned up with Dark Elementals in tow; I was on the verge of death when the NPC cavalry arrived and pulled them off me.

In addition to the festival furniture items, I found a nice parting gift from Veresko in my delivery box. It's going to suck not having him around.

/sigh

In

I can finally wear my helmet.

the good old days, the weekly "Test Your Mite" ENM had a stable cadre of players who never missed a run unless there was a real emergency. Lately, it's a complete toss-up. I spent the weekend at my parents' house and hustled back to be online in time, but we had to cancel the run today because it was just me and Neyla. He's thinking it may be time to throw in the towel, and I'm starting to agree. It's starting to be too much of a hassle to get people to show up because of conflicting schedules.

But I wasn't going to let it stop me from finally getting Dragoon to 60. I was so very close, so I decided to try DRG/DNC in Campaign. It worked surprisingly well, considering I could only use the first Curing Waltz. I also scrambled around Windurst Waters [S] between fights to burn off all the Campaign Ops I'd built up.

I can finally wear the full AF. Hooray for me.